Entertainment

Debbie Reynolds, Hollywood royalty and mother of Carrie Fisher, dies

LOS ANGELES — Debbie Reynolds, megastar of the stage and screen, pop music singer, entrepreneur and mother of Carrie Fisher, died Wednesday, just a day after her daughter succumbed to a heart attack. Reynolds was 84.

She was rushed to a hospital Wednesday afternoon with what was reported to be symptoms of a stroke. According to TMZ, which first reported the news, she was at the Beverly Hills home of son Todd Fisher discussing funeral plans for Carrie when she was stricken.

TMZ reported hours later that Reynolds had died, which several media outlets, including Mashable, later confirmed. Reynolds has had previous strokes, including in recent months, but recovered fully and was able to take part in her Las Vegas cabaret show earlier this year.

Fisher had died Tuesday, just a few days after suffering a cardiac arrest aboard a flight from London to LAX. Reynolds posted a message on Facebook later that morning that read:

Thank you to everyone who has embraced the gifts and talents of my beloved and amazing daughter. I am grateful for your thoughts and prayers that are now guiding her to her next stop. Love Carries Mother

Debbie Reynolds "boards an airliner in New York en route to Spain where she will film a new picture." The year is 1959.

Image: AP

Dream Factory debutante

From humble El Paso, Texas, origins Reynolds moved as a young girl to Burbank, California, where her family's lesser means meant trouble fitting in at her new school. But she won a Miss Burbank beauty contest at age 16, had a Warner Bros. contract shortly thereafter and was off to the races.

Her breakout performance was as a teen in the 1950 film Three Little Words, which earned her the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer. Her role as Kathy Selden in the 1952 classic Singin' in the Rain came along when she was 19 — the same age at which Carrie Fisher scored the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars.

Though Singin' in the Rain was not a huge hit at the time, it is now widely regarded as the greatest Hollywood musical ever made, an infinitely re-watchable classic that featured a trio of leads in Reynolds, Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor. Singin' is such a towering masterpiece that it stands as Reynolds' most notable work — and at that point, her inestimable career was just getting started.

Reynolds went on to become a major Broadway star, recording artist, television host, Las Vegas hotelier, entrepreneur, film historian and Hollywood memorabilia collector of a certain acclaim. She was fiercely capable, professional and full of grace — traits she would need to navigate the life ahead of her.

Reynolds' music career all by itself would've seemed a success by any measure; she scored the best-selling single by a female vocalist in 1957 with "Tammy" (from her film Tammy and the Bachelor) which spent five weeks at No. 1, and had two other top-25 hits. Her cabaret shows were a major draw in Las Vegas, where she once bought the Clarion Hotel and Casino, renaming it the Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Hotel.

Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds in 1957.

Image: AP

She had been married and divorced three times; Reynolds and her first husband, 1950s pop music superstar Eddie Fisher, had two children, Todd and Carrie. But Eddie Fisher left Reynolds for her close friend Elizabeth Taylor — grieving the recent death of husband Mike Todd, who died in a plane crash — in what may have been the most ruinous scandal in Hollywood history.

It was that tumultuous Hollywood upbringing that provided material for Carrie Fisher's literary works, including the semi-autobiographical Postcards from the Edge, autobiographical book and one-woman show Wishful Drinking (which references Reynolds frequently), and her most recent book, The Princess Diarist.

Though it was clear through the years that Fisher loved her mother dearly — they were photographed together in public hundreds if not thousands of times — much of her comic narrative centered around how Reynolds, ever the star before the stage mother, could not resist upstaging her daughter whenever possible.

Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher at a benefit in Beverly Hills in 2003.

Image: ASSOCIATED PRESS

For her final act, Reynolds had done it one last time, a notion that the wickedly witted Fisher would have found profoundly funny and apropos.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.